A lot of good points and the Controllers Office works closely with us and when i say us i mean the construction departments on auditing individual jobs and so just to give you some examples of their guiding advice that im in charge of facilitating implementation of is were trying to move towards a system where we have a standardized system for every construction job and its shared among and across departments and thats the easier part is evaluating and the harder part is what do you do with the evaluations after you have them and what do you do with past performance. In a low bid system its difficult to consider anything except the bid and so thats the challenge that we have before us and really briefly we have 3 different working groups that are working on this right now and one is the chapter 6 departments themselves and the contract people and the construction manager people to try to figure out how to wrap our heads around this and the technology component. A lot of our evaluations are paper based and obviously need to get past that and have an internet system accessible for everyone and contractors themselves to give input on a couple of things. One, what are fair objective questions that we can agree on that its okay to ask for a project and fair ways that the contractor can say we agree or disagree or you are not taking whatever conditions into account. The challenges with all of this in case its not clear from all of the preceding speakers is this is a subjective field and that goes a couple of ways. When you are building things parks or paving roads or whatever it is theres so many factors and regulatory agencies that it is easy for everyone to kind of point the finger at other people or point the finger at the way the designs were drawn or the way pg e does this or the way the contractor or subcontractor did that so our challenge is threading the needle to say all of that is true but there still must be objective questions we can ask that draw distinctions between high performing contractors and lower ones and another big issue is theres a lot of fear of a new way of doing things. On the contractor side i know that you have all received letters from numerous contractors over the last couple of months and the letters say in short its impossible to evaluate them because its inherit ly subjective and project managers that are going to blame them for everything and afraid of hard graders being harder than softer graders using the word grading for evaluating and afraid of lawyers and afraid of litigation and afraid of claims because they might know there was an error on the part of a contractor but they are not interested in spending the next few months in litigation and depositions talking about it because they wrote something down about the contractor that the contractor is going to fight tooth and nail to say its not true and those are just some of the issues on the table and theres a lot there but the good news is is that one that weve been working together and when i say we i mean contractors and puc and mta and anyone who has construction authority. Were starting to implement something from the start that affects us all and Going Forward the big decision that we need to make hopefully you know before the first half of this year is whether to come back here and ask you for legislative changes that would require evaluations of every job or certain jobs above a certain threshold at least and might also need legislative authority if we decide to consider past performance in ways that need changes to the administrative code and thats everything in a nutshell but i can probably speak to specific questions if you have them. Yes thank you i definitely want to open it up to Public Comment but i think the last question i have and i dont know if this is for you or mr. Thomas but with dpw and its responsibility seems like there should be some sort of requirement to report an incident like this to the state puc for an investigation so when this thing occurs it shouldnt be up to the operator but we were aware of it and we went out there and had folks overseeing it and you know it took five gas leaks to actually shut it down finally and again, what is the Department Going to do or change in order to make sure that number 1 were reporting this but more importantly we are shutting it down as soon as possible in order to prevent it from happening again so i dont know. Its a question for either one of you but hopefully. If john has anything to add specifically about gas ill let him but i will say this generally about safety another way to say more were trying to do a better job on not just based on cost only but considering other factors and we want to assess risk when we award this contract what is the risk relative to other people and im talking mainly safety cost and quality and any Evaluation System that we build one of the key core areas is safety and so using this exact scenario as an example we would hope to build in questions that would show as this job progressed where the safety lapses were and this is important for a couple of reasons and its important on the job itself so that everyone on the project staff can look at how its going 3 months into it and i know in this case 3 months was way too long but a certain period of time into it to say hey we need to correct the course were on and fix this and as the job ends and at the Department Head level or even at this level to look at the snapshot of the safety situation per job. What i want to hear is that anytime there is a gas leak in any instance that we plan to report it to the state puc for an investigation and if you dont think that should be the case why not . I actually would concur with that sentiment and weve talked within our staff about whose responsibility it is and it was our understanding that pg e as the operator notifies the puc when its appropriate but i dont necessarily see any reason why we couldnt also make that notification to the puc and whether or not that results in an investigation or not i cant say but were certainly looking at other measures that we can take and i dont think were necessarily prepared to answer all of that with finality but were looking into options at that point. All right thank you. All right with that supervisor peskin . First of all let me thank president breed for holding this and i think if you dont have hearings like this people will repeat these things more often and im interested in one specific thing that troubles me and i realize we have 3 legged stools and pg e and the state puc and whats particularly troubling to me is that ghilotti seems to have actively worked against the removal of the subcontractor i mean at the end of the day its our problem because it was our contract and our general and that general subbut im a little disturbed that were dealing only with the suband not the general contractor and the general contractor if im reading everything right, seems to have gone to bat for the subcontractor and that kind of implicates the contractor so what is your thinking on that . Thats certainly a good question. I think you know we focussed on the subcontractor who was performing the work who was responsible for the work while simultaneously notifying the general contractor that they were not doing adequate supervision and providing adequate safety oversight and there were provisions in the contract that they would have more than they did. They being ghilotti as . Yes, ghilotti brothers. It is our position that ghilotti is responsible for completing this work and certainly the subcontractor who was doing the work is the one that were most concerned with and felt that ghilotti could bring in another subcontractor who could do this work who has a better, who could bring a team to bare that could perform the necessary work in a safer manner despite repeated meetings and letters etc. We were really unable to reach a cord with synergy and so thats why we focussed on their removal in moving forward and you are right ghilotti has a responsibility as an oversight and it was their contract and we had to work through them to synergy in this case so and so what is the ultimate resolution . Is ghilotti going to go there and finish the job . Thats our intent at this point as i mentioned earlier we requested they provide new subcontractors and their qualifications to us which we have received from them at this point and we are in the process of reviewing that and proceedings with a contract modification to add them to the contract. Thank you. Thank you supervisor peskin and thank you for being here today. So with that i know i want to open it up to Public Comment if there are any members here from the public who would like to make any Public Comment at this time please come forward. Thank you president breed for holding this hearing its very important. As the gentleman from the california puc said we didnt have an explosion id really not like to have an explosion and we do need to tighten up these procedures sounds like the general contractor was at fault as well as the sub. I know that weve been talking over a number of meetings and hearings in the press conference birds eye view here i am coming back to the haight and the bus is diverted and it goes on this route takes off of haight street up and around over to cole and i get off the bus and walk over to haight street and see traffic cones i dont see a fire truck or pg e truck or city personnel i say whats going on . I go over to a merchant and they say theres been another gas leak and i dont know theres nothing that says go through this area stay out of this area all clear. Its very upsetting for us residents us homeowners and us renters to know what to do so we appreciate your looking at this with a magnifying glass and thinking about the safety of all of our citizens thank you. Thank you next speaker, please . As the gas leaks occurred they kept getting closer to my house. All of them occurred within a block. It is important for me that you all understand that were not raising questions about lowest bidder or the reporting requirements of puc to the city and county of San Francisco but the responsibility of the city and county of San Francisco to the residents of the city and county of San Francisco. What is you alls responsibility . Does it kick in after the second gas leak . Is it the third gas leak . Is it the 4th gas leak or is it the fifth gas leak . In this case we couldnt take it anymore and called for a press conference and supervisor breed showed up well and good and we had this hearing but what isnt discussed or what isnt on anybodys agenda is what is the responsibility of the city and county of San Francisco to report in a timely and comprehensive manner to residents of San Francisco after lets say the second gas leak . The second potentially catastrophic event in a cityfunded and designed public works project . It would seem to me that we need to see somebody from the city show up a lot quicker than after the fifth gas leak. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please . Hi. Im from the pan hand l Residents Association and our concern is were next to have our pipelines replace d and thank you for this hearing and i want to make sure that we do have you know things in place that this wont happen again because its primary residential where i am and dont have the businesses like haight street and people are gone and communication and if anything happens we dont have merchants that can say talk to people coming off the bus and reporting it we really have to rely on the contractors on good faith in other words so again thanks so much. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who would like to give Public Comment at this time . Seeing none we will close Public Comment and again id like to thank everyone for being here today. I do think its important that before we move forward with mr. Thomas with dpw, we do need some assurances that after the first gas leak in any construction project i mean what is going to be the procedure . How are people going to be notified and when is enough enough and when will we shut down a project for further review and finally making sure that were reporting all of these incidents to the California PublicUtilities Commission so what im hoping to get out of this hearing is a real plan of action so that we are not sure what were gonna do because im not walking away right now feeling comfortable that theres clarity as to what happens when this happens again other than ghilotti brothers they are currently working on presenting new contractors okay so whats the procedure . Whats gonna be the procedure moving forward . How are we going to hold them accountable . Can you give me something that assures the folks here from the neighborhood that we have this under control and were gonna take action in a way thats not like what we had done before . If i may just a couple of seconds here if i wasnt clear, earlier i apologize but its our intent to have titer contact so theres no confusion or lack of information on either our inspectors parts or otherwise. We intend to have additional supervision onsite and weve had some assurances from pg e that they will provide Additional Support as this project moves forward and we felt we took the prudent steps initially when the first hit happened and worked with them again on the second hit to make sure that you know we understood what happened and if you recall there were perceptions of extenuating circumstances but dont really hold water when it comes to this kind of effort and work and the code requires that you hand dig until its exposed and well make sure that happens and the use of hand tools will prevent this from reoccurring and it isnt to say one hundred percent guaranteed but i think with that oversight well be able to ensure that the neighborhood is safe moving forward. So you will have someone stationed 247 at the project site . Well during the progress of the work we have inspection personnel as well as the resident engineer but as you can guess the projects are long linear projects and work can be going on in many locations simultaneously and cant expect to have one hundred percent oversight at all locations its impossible to staff that way but we will make sure that both the general and subcontractors are aware im sure everybody is aware of the gravity of the situation and administer the contract as strictly as we can. Whats missing here is really how we communicate with the public about when this occurs so when we are in a situation where there is a gas leak how are we communicating with the public, how are we diverting traffic and informing the merchants and what is our plan of action so id like to say a plan of action so i can have a clear understanding of what you are proposing in order to ensure the folks in the community are theres like Immediate Response of how these things get dealt with so that the merchants know what to do so theres not a lot of confusing information we should probably prepare something in case this occurs this is what the procedures will be so that merchants and residents know because we hope it doesnt happen again but clearly because its happened so many times theres still a breakdown of trust with the city and how were going to be operating this contract or any future contract. I know that we have to get it done but i want to make sure that we put procedures in place in order to deal with issues as they arise. There were 2 things that you mentioned there and the first is the procedure associated with hitting the gas line and the procedure for hitting a waterline and those would be in place and enforced and where the Fire Department and pg e take control of the situation and we as public works support that effort and members of the public are either escorted out or told what they need to do and the second thing you mentioned is notification and closure to each one of those events and that i think well work on in our outreach and present that to you as part of our plan of action. And lastly i want to make sure we consider adding a requirement that when there is a gas leak that we immediately report it to the California PublicUtilities Commission for an investigation because the other thing is there was one investigation for five gas leaks. That investigation made it clear who was at fault and why and we continue to have as all of us have said finger pointing as to whose responsibility it was and clearly the subcontractor was at fault and were moving on to hopefully a new subcontractor that will be able to do a better job but i also want to make sure that we are communicating with the neighbors and the merchants and we are working to obtain as much information about the subcontractor and their track record and the work that they have done to ensure residents and merchants that the person that were choosing to work with is going to be someone that we can trust that can do the job well and that has a good safety track record so theres a lot of work ahead of us to get to a conclusion on making sure not only the work gets done but it gets done safely and i do appreciate you being here today along with other members from the community as well as from other departments and i just wanted to ask james if you had anything you wanted to add that we might have missed that we need to follow up on. Thank you for the follow up. As i was listening i had all of these things going through my head and a couple of things mentioned that struck me. One, it seemed like everybody who came up here conclusion was its synergy and definitely synergy was most at fault and its nice to hear dpw mention they are planning on reporting to the state puc and some of other concerns i had regarding specific incidents the last gas line from what i understand was hit 5 feet from the marking and seemed like there were some inaccuracies here and also the october 20th sinkhole was actually one that i reported myself so im fairly familiar with it and it was not an Immediate Reaction and yes it was not technically in the work zone but it was at the corner where they were parking all the heavy equipment and i think their response was about 16 or 18 hours after it was reported at 8 p. M. On the 20th so there were some things that i urge we look a little deeper into what was said here and great speeches i was very impressed but i think we need to dig a little deeper and thank you again for hosting this hearing. Thank you. Supervisor yee did you have any questions or other comments . Yeah, i just wanted to this just dawned on me that mr. King or several other people i guess mentioned that as you look at new contracts that you assign you will be looking at applying for their work history to make sure that they are competent and i guess part of what im thinking is you also have to look at what kind of subcontractors they are hiring. Is there a track record of hiring your poor performing subcontractors thats always going to be an issue. Maybe the general will be doing okay work and all the subcontractors they hire are doing subpar work and that should not not a factor in giving the contract. So the issue is one of the issues is that when these jobs are bid they are bid based on what we ask contractors to say so we say hey were gonna build a hole this big and wide what are your qualifications you have to meet xyz qualifications and when we write that down it has to be broad enough and specific enough to ebgs conclude poor performers and thats the tricky part in a nutshell and i guess i would describe the pool that we have now is contractors who might be a plus contractors and contractors who might be d plus but if you draw a line and say hey we want you to bid on this project theres no bonus for being a plus or b or anything whether its the prime or the subso theres just a big pool of work and thats the way we do things now and we do run into problems when we have prequalification processes and when we draw specifications so narrowly no one can bid and as you can see from the example even after this many incidents even at this stage we have people saying its this guys fault and thats the trick about writing stuff and i know you know that and were trying to use the legal tools we have to address it. Thank you. With that i do think its important that we do an investigation through our budget and legislative analyst and ask them to look into the city departments responsible because i mean were hearing you know just a lot of information from various city departments and i want to make sure that the board of supervisors budget and legislative analyst looks into this situation and comes back to us with policy recommendations and changes to legislation that could help make this a more solid system because theres still a lot of different pieces moving here and nothing seems to be concrete nothing seems to have you know other than yes, theres a plan of action and this is the protocol that you followed but i do think we need to look at a way to make sure that we put something in place from the board of supervisors so we can ensure that we are protecting our residents when these contracts are awarded and thank you all again for being here and we still have much to do and ill be keeping a close eye on what happens with any project in my district including north of pan hand l and including other places and hoping dpw is doing its Due Diligence and id like to thank the presenters today and taking leadership on this particular issue and also like to thank my colleagues for sitting through this hearing. Another district five is the catalysts for the issue this could affect any district time in San Francisco and i want to make sure were putting clear checks and balances clear systems that will make people feel comfortable and safe with the procedures that the city has in place to do any of these projects and with that id like to move that we file this item to the call of the chair. Theres been a motion any objections . Item moved. Would you like to file or continue. I want to continue it to the call of the chair just in case we need to bring it back. Any objection . None motion passes. Thank you very much for your patience out there. Madam clerk is there anything else . No further business. Okay so in that case then the meeting is adjourned. Behalf of all the guests and the staff at st. Anthonys it is great to have your here this morning. [applause] here at st. Anteanys work with people who are homeless and those on the virj of becomes homeless and what we have sheen more aunch unforchfootly than not is people that feel isolated and excluded so very happy to see when the mayor has something to say about the homeless pop ylgds he comes to the tenderloin and st. Ancyanys. We insisted those we serve the homeless in particular are not the problem, they are brothers and sisters. The problem has to boo with us and the way we structure our liferb jz cities and thijsss like that see great to see when we want to do something about homelessness the mayor is coming forward and making good proposals for how we can solve our problem, not fix the homeless. [applause] there are a lot of people here working for years on that problem. It is a problem for the whole community but it is also one we need to thitsy to step forward to help us do so we welcome the mayor in his remarks today. Without further ado, i would like to recognize a couple people here that have come and been long involved ing these issue. Angela alota is here today. From the San Francisco interfaith counsel we have mikem pops and rita chimal. Supervisor marc farrell is here. Supervisor jewel jewel yechristensen and all the Department Heads here of the city and all the Community Based organizations that are represent. Thank you for coming and welcome to st. Anthonys good morning everyone. Thank you all for being here. Let me begin with just comment about some things that have occurred in the last 48 hours that i know are on peoples minds and want to address that right off before i get fl to had body of the speech. But i want to start out with some words about the officer involved shooting that occurred yesterday in the bay view and rutted in the death of a man. Let me first say that any time, any time, there is a officer involved shooting i take that extremely seriously and so does our chief. I have seen the video too you know, you look at the video and you justbefore my words came out, we were yelling drop the dam knife. I already spoken to the chief and there will be a thorough and transparent investigation of this incident without delay and know the public deserves this and expect it and i expect it as well and will make sure the Community Knows all the details about this. I also want to take a moment of silence with all of you to remember the victims of the tragic and sensely shootings in san Dern Bernardino yesterday. Our thoughts are with the victims and families and the people of San Francisco grieve with them. But you know, you know what they really deserve . Those families deserve action. Deserve the congress that will stop this madness, stop and by enacting sensible limit ozen deadly fire arms and they need to do that now. [applause] we cannot just accept this. We cannot just accept this. Thank you. Thank you. And again, good morning everybody and thank you for being here. First again i want to say thank you to the [inaudible] and barry for hosting us this morningism barry you and the staff for helping the needy and velinable throughout the city is a inspiration to me and it is never tiring to cut turkey with you bury. I also want to say thank you to our elected and appointed officials and Community Leaders and pleny of the nonprofits providers are here this morning, thank you for joinsing us today. Im very proud for being reelected your mayor. This is a wonderful city and want to say thank you to the voters of San Francisco who believe in our Solutions Oriented and collaborative approach to solving problems and have asked us to return to do more. Thaupg for placing your trust in me for the next 4 years. This is the greatest city in the world and im honored and humbleed as the mayor to serve another term. You know, i often said and will continue saying i love the city, i love it as much of any of you and also with you. I love that we never run from the challenges. We confront them with our progressive optimism and something that has come to define our city in all of us. We tackleed a whole lot this last 5 years and some the most complicated and intractable challenges remain and i ran for a second term so we can work on them together. Foremost among the challenges wrun we struggled with for decades is homelessness. Let there be more doubt, the collective best effort like Service Providers like all you in the room today have certainly made a difference. I know that because i have been paying a attention to this for many years. While i may be a little silent sometimes, i watch, i talk to people, i engage and once in a while i might be lucky enough to hand out a key. You are the ones, everyone in the room, you are the ones giving the hor heroic rfts at front line staff on a midnight shift at the shet ers and do the outreach and are case managers with a challenging loud. Or you may be the one cleaning up the streets so people might have a cleaner street to be on because that is the only place they have. The best evidence of all of the work collaboratively is the over 20,000 formally Homeless People living indoors. Living independently and with the social and emotional support that they need and that the needs that are met with our City Services or they might be back in their home towns. But, despite this we havent eliminated homelessness. As we house and serve thousands, they are replaced by new thousands. People, people who fall in homelessness here, people sent from other states or people who arrive every day seeking a better life in our city. As a result we continue to have People Living on the street, under the freeway, in tents on the sidewalk and some even without tents. All together, more than 3500 people are street homeless in San Francisco. Human beings. Human beings with hopes, with fears, susceptible to cold and rainy weather. Human being who deserve or compassion. We know there are nearly the same number of people without homes that are living in our shelter, treatment programs or temporary situations. Friends , this isnt a healthy way to live, you know that and i know that, especially if children are a part of that family. It is not just a growing problem here in San Francisco by the way and we all know that as well. Major cities across our country, la, new york, honolulu, seattle and more and the state and federal governments offer us too little assistance. Thats why next week ill join at least 5 other mayors on the west coast and our federal government representatives to explore federal funding opportunities and policy changes in the area of homelessness. I know we look at the streets sometimes and the encampments and the depth and complexity the problem jz to some it all might feel hopeless, but as your may frr the next 4 years im optimistic because today in San Francisco all of the ingreedgents of success are here to end homeless for thousands of our fellow citizens. Thanks to a historically Strong Economy we do have resources. We certainly have creativity and know we got the passion. For our serviceers providers and city staff, we have the energy that is required. We have public support to try new more effective approaches. But you know what is missing . What is missing is the ingredient lacking for generations, it is what we call, real cooperation. We cant solve street homelessness, but it will if we want to , it will require cooperation. We have seen this cooperation at the place called, the Navigation Center at 1950 mission street. When Community Providers work with city departments, when the private sector in the surrounding community all come together with us, we actually are creating a National Model for ending homelessness. So, next year we are going to do something bold that skills up the cooperation and coordination this requires and we see at the Navigation Center all of that happening across the board on homelessness. I will call apauss all the departments to Work Together with our Community Based organizations, advocate and National Expert to ert change and reform or government and other, and will create a department with a mission to end homelessness here in San Francisco. [applause] i begin by not just makingi know people have worked on this for years and want to acknowledge first the great work of our past mayors, feinstein and agnos, mayor jordan and willie brown, of course gaveen newsome. I want to build on each of their legacies for addressing homelessness. Of course our former supervisor alota talks about passion. She dedicated a life time to the work and want to say thank you for being here and thank you for being a trusted advisor and advocate and one that reminds everybody we got to get to better solutions. I want to also acknowledge the good work of our former supervisor bevan dufty and director of hope for the last years for tireless work with Service Providers and client to move people into better lives. I learned a lot with bevan, but i felt his passion avenue day he has been on the job. And today, building on the work that came before we begin a new agency, a agency with a budget and mandate to solve homelessness. Well bring together under one roof the multitude of Homeless Outreach, housing, shelter and Supportive Services that exist across many Different Departments. Over the last 20 years, we increased our spending on homelessness because the crisis got worse. But because we didnt have a Central Department for homelessness we layered program upon program across a dozen Different Department said and then we expected the better outcome. No one agencyies mission was homelessness and today we fix that. With greater coordination we expect better results, more efficiencys and deep er accountability. To make this new department a realty next year ill be calling upon the leadership of barbarager seea director of public ehealth, trent roar director of human sunchss and [inaudible] director of hope. Together we have aurltd r already implemented some the most forward thinking progressive homeless policies in the country. We created the nations first Navigation Center, which is just 9 months that we have successfully moved more than 250 people off the streets into healthier settings. Great progress towards ending chronic veterans homelessness is done these last few years tackling family homelessness we made great progess. A new investment in Supportive Housing of 29,000,000 this year. I want to saw they think to tren, barbara and sam and all your team said for pourer your hearts in this work and thank you for joins forces with us to take it to the next level vlt i want to say a special thank you to public works. I know that department. You kept our streets and have done your best and for always having a positive interaction with the Homeless People and compassion and thank you for taking on the smelliest dirtgist jobs in town. I also want to say thank you to all of the people who are own Single Room Occupancy Hotels in the city thmpt hotels that are cooperating and working with us to make these Units Available for people transitioning out of homelessness. That is stock of housing. We never thought through our past loousts and insistence to get code enforcement, we didnt realize how valuable they are to us and a valuable assess they can be. I know some people will say, a department to solve homlessness mayor. 93 eve. We cant solve homelessness in San Francisco. I know that will will be peoples comments. I say we will end homelessness every every single day for least one person. For at least one family. For at least a veteran every single day. I know because i have felt the power of giving keys to people exactly in those situations. We will end it for every 1 for every day for someone who suffers on our street. That is what the purpose of creating this department is about. I want a staff at this new department, each person on the staff will come to work every morning with a single minded focus on ending homelessness for people on the streets. I want the measure of the work of this department and my office to be answering this question, what did i do to end homelessness on our city streets today and what did i do to give people a stable shelter, a home and a path to a healthier life. That is what i want them to ask themselves every single day. I want that to be the question that they ask of themselves. You know, ending homelessness in a very simple way is a matter of priorities. To get there we have to double down on programs that truly work. We have to coordinate with partners, federal, state and other cities. We have to share and do the best practices and we have to also share our challenges with each other. And you know, i always am focused and concerned about congress and as you know, congress is largely abandoned homelessness in the country and we in San Francisco cant wait frathe politics of waug wash dc to arrive, we have tolead and we lead with values. Our San Francisco values. That is what being a san franciscan is all about, isnt it . It is our values. To be fully able to achieve this vision im inviting a group of National Experts to advise how to create and set the mandate for this new department. I have spoken to president obamas point person on homelessness, matthew dorty and he agreed to come out and advise and has the expertise of looking at programs across the country to see what works. We want to be egressive on this but want to be practical at the same time. How will we define sausking street homelessness . What are the investments we are making and how can we double down on this . Is there something that we can be doing that we are not already doing . I aults want to invite the local homeless coordinating board to serve as a formal advisory body during the process. We convened San Franciscos best and brightest on that commission and definitely need your input. I invite all of you here, every one of you, the people working hard every day day in and out to join in defining the new effort as well because ill present this plan with the budget this coming year. Foremost among the efforts of the department are expanding the successful Navigation Center program. We learned that by removing barrier tooz entry into the Shelter Program and pairing ever Navigation Center with a housing exist we are making a difference. We already committed the funding in the budget this year to double our capacity at the Navigation Center and the department will significantly increase to this model. Well coordinate outreach and build more centers and secure more housing exists. Certainly this requires serious funding. Since i took office we have spent all most 100 mil yen more every year on Homeless Services and housing and my commitment today is this, to never let our city slip backwards on our funding priorities. That means movering forward well spend at threes 250 million a year on outreach and housing for 10s of thousands of people. We know success isnt mesered by how much money we spend, you know that. Accountability matters. We are measured by the number of human beings we lep off our streets and into a better life and by conditions on our streets also improving at the same time. So, im setting a ambishish but i believe an achievable goal for the second term. By the time i leave office we will move at least 8 thousand people out of homelessness and well remove them out of homelessness forever. [applause] and well build a system that ends a persons homelessness before it becomes chronic. That is another thing we learned from the Navigation Center and well do this and achieve this all together. Well do this by housing families, veterans long term homeless to Homeward Bound Program and Long Term Care for the seriously mentally ill. I also need cooperation for the private sector and philanthropic partner tooz participate as well. I already started conversation with San Franciscos Business Leaders on this particular goal. Business leaders, big and small, about a Multiyear Partnership to add additional Navigation Centers to the cities portfolio. To them across the board i say thank you and begin by saying a personal thank you to our first anonymous private donor to the the first Navigation Center. Im excited for our partnerships to develop more in the coming months just like the way we started our first Navigation Center. It was a partnership with faith and Funding Sources and community in the mission and then everybody else. We need more Partnership Models like our effort to end family homelessness in the Elementary Schools which is the focus of [inaudible] 2 great civic leaders. No less different than our Technology Leaders like nob nub who also became a partner to end veterans homelessness by funding a viable new housing for them in mission bay. Letting people live on our streets exposed to violence and whether that isnt compassion. It isnt healthy, it isnt safe and it does want represent who we are as San Francisco and it is not our San Francisco values. You know, im also proud of our city coming together over something that used to be controversial and im talking about lauras law. Thank you for visor marc farrell, thank you for your leadership in this effort on a issue that used to divide a lot of us, now it units us with a comma causs because we are figuring it out. Since we launched our consensus program just last month we have already received 28 referals from ern concerned family members and Service Providers. Some of the most severely mentally ill they are finally getting help. Lauras law is one the many compassionate programs we should be doing in partnership with our courts and District Attorney and Justice System. San francisco values means we wont lock people up or persecute them just for being mentally ill. That wont happen and wont happen as long as im mayor, but we can use the resources our Justice System to make sure people are Getting Better heltier outcomes. I want to challenge the courts, our public defender and District Attorney and Health Provider tooz come together in the same spirit of collaboration that i proposed today. Coming together with your diverse responsibilities and your legal mandates to better serve those desperately in need of our help because i will challenge you with the same outcome im calling upon everyone else. Lets talk about not just our legal mandates, lets also talk about outcomes for people. [applause] it is not compassionate and you will agree with me on this to let people suffer silently, to medicate with drugs and call and live an unhealthy life on our streets, that is not compassion and we are empowered to help the seriously mentally ill people but first have to agree to coperate. In a new year ill invite all our gurchlt stakeholders and Mental Health and criminal justice to convene with me. I bring this group together to get past the reasons we cannot do things and figure out a way we can do it. Lets say for example, you take this program, some of you in the room know what the 51 50 program is. It is a program with people in personal crisis and danger to themselves we take them to the hospital for 72 hours, but you know what is the challenging part of that 51 50 program . Once they come out they go right back on the streets and into the same unhealthy situation that they were literally 48 hours ago. We pulled them out and bring them right back in. That is 51 50. Lets redesignthality program for a better outcome, a sustained outcome for those individuals. Lets redesign conservativeship programs to serve the intended populations while respecting their civil liberty. We can have a better outcome on that as well. The seriously mentally ill deserve our best efforts. It is complicated and thats why we take that challenge up. As we focus on getting people into healthier settings, we also need to refocus on the people who are not homeless. The people who prey on our homeless. Drug dealers who target the addicted and mentally ill contributing to Serious Health problems. Im calling y i am calling for stepped up enforcement for predatory drug dealing around our Navigation Centers and shelter and Homeless Service locations and every place we house our homeless. [applause] we need to clean up drug dealing around the buildings where Homeless People are trying to clean up their lives. We are not criminalizing drug addictions, we are enforcing existing laws to protect the most vulnerable. I want to thank supervisor and president of the board of supervisors president london breed for being a leader on the reforms. She is a strong voice the quality of life and reforming our treatment of the mentally ill. Thats why friend i am optimistic. A new department, ambitious goal, a will in our city to succeed on this. We can make homelessness rare. We can make it brief. We can make it a one time event in peoples lives. We can move at least 8 thousand people out of homelessness forever. For too long deeply held and ideological differences divided all of us. Some say we are not tough enough. Others say we are not compalgzinate enough. Some say we spend too much money and others say we havent spent enough. It is time to reconcile these disagroogruments not to set them aside but work through them. If we can cooperate to solve homelessness the sky is the limit on what else we can achieve together. I want to say to you again, we can end homelessness for each individual that we touch, for each family, for each child, we can do that for them. Thats what we can define as ending homelessness. If we do it together, we will have demonstrated that collaboration and cooperation is the best way to move forward. So, i want to end by saying thank you to all of you for taking time out of your busy day to listen to me. Im excited to work with you, this will give a struck chur to work effectively with all of us. We can do better and will do better, im excited and we are San Francisco. Thank you very much. [applause] welcome to the epic did you know that many buildings in San Francisco are not bolted to the foundation on todays episode well learn how the option to bolt our foundation in an earthquake. Hi, everybody welcome to another episode of stay safe im the director of earthquake safety in the city and county of San Francisco im joined by a friend matt. Thank you thanks for being with us were in a garage but at the el cap center south of market in San Francisco what weve done a simulated the garage to show you what it is like to make the improvements and reduce the reflexes of earthquake were looking at Foundation Bolts what do they do. The Foundation Bolts are one of the strengthening system they hold the lowest piece of wood onto the foundation that prevents the allows from sliding during an earthquake that is a bolt over the original construction and these are typically put in along the foundation to secure the house to the Foundation One of the things well show you many types of bolts lets go outside and show the vufrdz were outside the epic center in downtown San Francisco well show 3 different types of bolts we have a e poxy anchor. It is a type of anchor that is adhesive and this is a rod well embed both the awe hey that embeds it into the foundation that will flip over a big square washer so it secured the mud sell to the foundation well need to big drill luckily we have peter from the company that will help us drill the first hole. So, now we have the hole drilled ill stick the bolt in and e postoffice box it. That wouldnt be a bad idea but the dust will prevent the e postoffice box from bonding we need to clean the hole out first. So, now we have properly cleaned hole whats the next step. The next step to use e postoffice box 2 consultants that mixes this together and get them into tubes and put a notice he will into the hole and put the e postoffice box slowly and have a hole with e postoffice box. Now it is important to worm or remember when you bolt our own foundation you have to go to 9 department of building inspection and get a permit before you start what should we look at next what i did next bolt. A couple of anchors that expand and we can try to next that will take a hole that hole is drilled slightly larger marathon the anchor size for the e postoffice box to flow around the anchor and at expansion is going into the hole the same dinning room well switch tamet so, now we have the second hole drilled what next. This is the anchor and this one has hard and Steel Threads that cuts their way into the concrete it is a ti ton anchor with the same large square so similar this didnt require e postoffice box. Thats correct you dont needed for the e postoffice box to adhere overnight it will stick more easily. And so, now it is good to go is that it. Thats it. The third anchor is a universal Foundation Plate when you dont have room above our foundation to drill from the top. So, now we have our Foundation Plate and the tightened screw a couple of ways to take care of a foundation whats the best. The best one depends on what your house is like and our contractors experience theyre sometimes considered the cadillac anchor and triplely instead of not witting for the e postoffice box this is essentially to use when you dont have the overhead for the foundation it really depends on the contractor and engineering what they prefer. Talking to a qualified professional and see what as a society weve basically failed big portion of our population if you think about the basics of food, shelter safety a lot of people dont have any of those im mr. Cookie cant speak for all the things but i know say, i have ideas how we can address the food issue. Open the door and walk through that dont just stand looking out. As they grew up in in a how would that had access to good food and our parent cooked this is how you feed yours this is not happening in our country this is a huge pleasure im david one of the cofounder so about four year ago we worked with the serviced and got to know the kid one of the things we figured out was that they didnt know how to cook. I heard about the Cooking School through the Larkin Academy a. Their noting no way to feed themselves so theyre eating a lot of fast food and i usually eat whatever safeway is near my home a lot of hot food i was excited that i was eating lunch enough instead of what and eat. As i was inviting them over teaching them basic ways to fix good food they were so existed. Particle learning the skills and the food they were really go it it turned into the is Charity Foundation i ran into my friend we were talking about this this do you want to run this Charity Foundations and she said, yes. Im a cofound and executive director for the cooking project our best classes participation for 10 students are monday theyre really fun their chief driven classes we have a different guest around the city theyre our stand alone colas we had a series or series still city of Attorneys Office style of classes our final are night life diners. Santa barbara shall comes in and helps us show us things and this is one the owners they help us to socialize and ive been here about a year. We want to be sure to serve as many as we can. The San FranciscoCooking School is an amazing amazing partner. It is doing that in that space really elevates the space for the kids special for the chief that make it easy for them to come and it really makes the experience pretty special. Im sutro sue set im a chief 2, 3, 4 San Francisco. Thats what those classes afford me the opportunity it breakdown the barriers and is this is not scary this is our choice about you many times this is a feel good what it is that you give them is an opportunity you have to make it seem like its there for them for the taking show them it is their and they can do that. Hi, im antonio the chief in San Francisco. The majority of kids at that age in order to get them into food they need to see something simple and the evidence will show and easy to produce i want to make sure that people can do it with a bowl and spoon and burner and one pan. I like is the receipts that are simple and not feel like its a burden to make foods the cohesives show something eased. I go for vera toilet so someone cant do it or its way out of their range we only use 6 ingredients i can afford 6 ingredient what good is showing you them something they cant use but the sovereignties what are you going to do more me youre not successful. We made a vegetable stirfry indicators hed ginger and onion that is really affordable how to balance it was easy to make the food we present i loved it if i having had access to a kitchen id cook more. Some of us have never had a kitchen not taught how to cookie wasnt taught how to cook. I have a great appreciation for programs that teach kids food and cooking it is one of the healthiest positive things you can communicate to people that are very young. The more programs like the cooking project in general that can have a positive impact how our kids eat is really, really important i believe that everybody should venting to utilize the kitchen and meet other kids their age to identify theyre not alone and their ways in which to pick yours up and move forward that. It is really important to me the opportunity exists and so i do everything in my power to keep it that. Well have our new headquarters in the heart of the tenderloin at taylor and kushlg at the end of this summer 2014 were really excited. A lot of the of the conditions in San Francisco they have in the rest of the country so our goal to 257bd or expand out of the San Francisco in los angeles and then after that who know. Wed never want to tell people want to do or eat only provide the skills and the tools in case thats something people are 2rrd in doing. You cant buy a box of psyche you have to put them in the right vein and direction with the right kids with a right place address time those kids dont have this you have to instill they can do it theyre good enough now to finding out figure out and find the future fo issue. Homeless in San Francisco is a challenging issue that effects owner in the city in many different was as of the 2014 Homeless Census over 64 homeless in individual in the city to try to address the issue weve got a program for chronic homeless welcome to the Navigation Center. This Pilot Project is for People Living on the street what makes it different the Navigation Center is able to accommodate homeless encampments lowell u allowing people to keep their pets and bring their personal bloonlz. The full realization that people dont want to be homeless not refuse services but from the services dont meet them and not relevant theyre not going to be successful if you look at the budget losses weve got a community sacrifice important people to get food and laundry were standing next to the bathrooms it is designed to be a dynamic and brief residential experience where right of on this site city staff to connect you to homeless places to return to family dine is up for medical and all those things that are complicated for people. The other exciting thing city agencies come on site and provided the services for folks this is existed to see when the goal of streamlining a a whole processes of getting people on go gentle assistance into housing as much as possible. Way totally different you can come and agree as please and get Laundry Services and showers any time of the day and night its twentyfour hours a day whatever and twhefr its not like any other she recalls. They come and help people for what it is theyre required the issues they need and reach out and do what we can to say okay how can we accommodate you to get you set up and straight never in my mind imagined a program like this this place it different and a a lot a lot that better it works. The navigation is center is a collaboration of partnerships too city departments one is the Homeless Outreach team managed by the San Francisco distributing i look forward to the Navigation Center well have our agents go out and help and say dont go anymore over and over send our dayshift out theyve meet the population and hang out and hang in the encampment and transport people and be with them and make immediate impacts with me and my staff. Bringing our wloongz whatever you go presents a problem this place their help with the storage i dont have to worry about it staying here you know youre getting things done they need to get things down done to get off the street avenue of the hope alsoness is gone. They help you if youre hungry go eat if e you need to go places go. Theyre 4th district it awe auto. It was funded through a unanimous donation and of may 2015 an additional 3 million to help to continue the Program Beyond 18 months. You see people coming out theyre ready to being so the future homes you know how variable the Navigation Center is my message for the constituents yes something can be done do break chronic homelessness it is being done. This is a community that sets an example but i how to pick an area that was funky theyve seen were trying to do is help their neighbors theyve seen getting sicker and more frail and broken down on the streets and welcomed us thats a powerful Statement People are exist and president in theyre becoming to see the movement for folks and people on the streets are only survival modes where is there next meal and their itch more carefree. The staff here is interpretation the first day i have a appointment and everything was made all you do is go through them this makes a huge difference. To get settled in a helping hand, to get on my feet, take care of the issues i have and get out of bed and help. Even though the Navigation Center has been up in march 2014 the program is creating successful outreach for its clients. A month ago they came to me and asked me to go into a new program i moved into here and now 3 months later i have my own place it is mine i lock my door dont worry about my stuff it feels human again good morning, everybody. Thank you for coming to city hall first of all, thank to all the departments it under the general umbrella of the Emergency Management public works and area our Economic Workforce Development office including our faith cbo community and penguin and others weve been explicit expecting some big storms to come our way as conversations with meteorologists i think thats their property name and scientists warn us of the el nino storms that are coming here that will certainly our city and our area will be a focus of what necessary expect to be flooding i havent seen any rain yet but i want to be and so our department desirable reduce if we lucky well be offeringly prepared we deal with unexpected dangers about you it is good he appreciate the departments and our direction coming together and doing everything we can to prepare not only themselves and their operations but to the public to the medium large and Small Businesses particularly to the residents for most now we know that with the exceptions weve been working in the private segment and Public Sector as well as with the faith based partners to make sure were all ready and reemphasis that everyone should continue at their time when there isnt a big flooding going on to assess sf 72. Org that is where there is good information we work on that site very well to prepare everybody and again thank our department of Emergency Services for putting out robust sets of information for i cannot we will definitely be taking care of people on the streets as much as possible and hear more detail but 11 hundred more beds more than the shelter beds and in addition to the winter she will not beds that enter Faith Council is helping us to identify that are Human Services will identify an additional 11 hundred shelter beds for those people that that she will not should that large storm come our way were preparing those sites and want to make sure that people who are on the streets know we have your outreach teams letting them know we have additional shelter so we simply do not try to experience the effects of a large storm by themselves but reach out to as much as possible thank you to public works and the Public Utilities commission for Work Together ive seen the crews and done videos with their volume trucks i know how loud 38 they are theyve been looking every catch bacon and with all the leaves theyll be plugged so we have to refresh those catch bacons by unfleg influencing them and any residents that see them plugged for trash or leafs report those to 311 and those agencies will get out to take care of them and make sure our infrastructure can go as much as they can to deal with 9 emergency our office of Economic Workforce Development i want to thank them theyve been in communications aimed at our Small Businesses that are particular flowed prone areas their preparing and making sure we know what they can do and the services we Office Public works and other agencies working on those sites well have those sites up where residents and visitors can object 10 i think 10 free he moomd for their use at locations that convenient for them this is one location well have them at a number of locations nearby historically identified places of flooding but i do want to say our attitude as city hall is one we want everyone to know that alert sf and the 72 hours. Org is there were preparing for a disagreeing discharge that is man made or otherwise were prepared and want to put out as much free information as possible so when people plan for those disasters it is less changing more before corning sea making sure they take care of the communications and their families and businesses and their neighbors i want to say again, thank you to our event our Police Department theyll be out there making sure they respond to any specific needs that are there along with public works as we have our deniable that can assist people in inspecting areas the city or the homes and apartments what might be needed as well as public works we emphasis that if there is any lifethreatening emergency people for sure call 911 but when no lifethreatening emergency please call 311 steady and that will be taken care of and the distinctions are in the tree branch falls on the street none it hurt thats the 311 but if a life wire ryan falls and people around that that is a 911 it is lifethreatening we need to distinguish that so we dont have our lines filled with inappropriate calls to those lines we want the public to be read i again offer my thanks to the departments that are here today they are ready and theyre willing theyre able to engage in the departments and we want our city to be safe and prepared and doing what we do early and often so again, thank you and up now with more details along with the other departments is ann from our department of Emergency Services. Thank you, mr. Mayor and good morning in the early 80s and the late 90s we had huge storms here in the bay area well, actually throughout california according to a recent released e released report 46 days of rain in january and february of 1998 thats a lot of rain we learned from each experience each large storm that go things happy you you know you have downed power lines and the mayor said and Power Outages and flooding all sorts of thing we need to prepare weve gone through 4 years of drought a lot of trees coming down they dont have the root structures and the mudslides we have been preparing for this the impact is on the whole community of San Francisco we started developing plans last fall working with all of our city departments agency and our nonprofit partners in the Faith Community and developing a game plan for el nino this year our concept of proclamations or game plan is continuous operations through a storm it if a severe storm tweezer in constant contract with the National Weather service that provides us with information on point telling you the impact and severity of the storm and the potential hazards to San Francisco we will queen a Conference Call with the city storm Incident Management Team or i m t to update the Partner Agencies what to expect with the upcoming storm if necessary well open our Emergency Operations on 1011 turk to make sure were Court Reporting our response activity with rains as the little spitting rains out p there and right now our city is preempt twentyfour hour to make sure that the residents and citizens and the visitors to San Francisco are safe our game plan relies on the corridor response at all levels of government navigate our lead integer managers my lead el nino plan is meeting with fema to talk about our Court Reporting response effort our success relies on all our partners like pg e, and our communitybased organizations who are integrated with us at all levels of Emergency Operations in the field on the tv monitor youll see sf 72 hour or city now the information hub and find information updates id like to take the opportunity when not an emergency this is a live site i encourage people to go check it out and finally with alert sf our text Merchandising Service in San Francisco we have a new feature that will make that easier for people to sign up all you have to do a text 888777 triple 8, triple 7 and type in alert sf youre connected to this Environmental Service i encourage all people in San Francisco and visitors to sign up for alert sf by registering youll be able to keep yourselves save. What to expect as we approach the el nino storm on that note im going to turn it over to trent roar the director of our Emergency Services. Thank you. Im trent the Human Services and hsa is the lead agency for providing shelters in emergencies and were stepping up for el nino on both ann and i were actually involved that the shelters in the 7, 98 a lot of lessons we learned the biggest one we dont want a single shelter with one thousand plus people but shelters where the homeless are and a plan as the mayor said 11 hundred shelter beds with others depending on the demand located throughout the neighborhoods in San Francisco admission and south of market, tenderloin, civically and southeast part of city and bayview and the hatred Golden Gate Park but the process well undertake when we prepare for this storm will be meeting with the National Weather service well look at winds and temperature and duration and amount of projected precipitation based on those factors well decide whether or not to activate the shelters well prepare in phases so if we do make the determination we need to activate for our long phases do it in phases the way we stage the locations allows us to bring the shelters up to two or three hours so that excludes mats and partnering with meals on wheel easy this Salvation Army and others meals on wheels and staffed with city staff as well as the nonprofits the shelter will operate on to a form 700 to project how long it will last and probable a half or a day after the transitioning out of the shelters the types of location the first thing we look at where are the existing be shelters are providing shelters for folks our Emergency Shelter some is 15 hundred and 25 beds right now at hsa and thats 1 hundred plus for single adults women and families and some have drop in areas or cafeterias to allow individuals thats the first place well look and activate and have our partners with the rec and Park Department their 3 rec centers that will be used and then the nonprofit partners and others who have facilities we can use and lastly other facilities ymca for example, has stepped up to provide their give him nature in the western edition and activating weasel be learning was a as we go it is hard to anticipate but in 1998 we had a thousand beds that seems to me you looked at sort of the homeless places in the at any given time 3 thousand people on the streets some dont want to good indoors and at risk of our harming themselves partnership with other agencies and temporary accommodations for two or three nights and others for the homeward bound the Transportation Program in other cities and shelter the remainder as we assess the storm and the demand and already have contingencies for hundred additional beds should we need that the facilities will not be some discussion or word on the street to have tents theyre not tempts those are permanent structures that will be adding mats and other things to some of the facilities some of the bigger sheds might be heat and in those cases erect a tent inside of a structure but no plans for tents on the city streets and thanks to the partnering with tdm and others nonprofit partners with the department of health well be doing the street outreach and the hope sf so we feel that were prepared and almost finished with the memorandum of understanding and contract for locates well be ready to activate within a couple of weeks we anticipate the weather is hard to anticipate but the heavy el nino rains from january so february well be prepared for the homeless residents thanks. Thank yous interpreting well hear from barbara garcia. Good morning the district will have roving teams to make sure that the medical needs and the Mental Health needs of clients are taken care of were working with the outreach teams for the serviced to make sure they know that the sheltered will be available particularly our Homeless Outreach team that have mooeveng relationships with the people over the years will have the ability to get the people into is the she recalls we feel confident about that and our teams will insure that any individuals that Needs Services and ongoing support will be provided by the teams the roving teams are ready to go thank you very much. Thank you bearing now well hear in Mohammed Nuru the director for public works from San Francisco. Thank you like the mayor said over the last few months all the agencies have been working to present prepare for the upcoming storms as part of work weve done over the last few weeks had a couple of sandbags give away gaze and 15 thousand sandbags were given out we still have a large supply of sandbags and any residents feels their vulnerable to any kind of flooding through the garage or door or the back of their house come to our yard chavez a large number to supply people and in addition our crews are scheduled to work around the clock performing inspections of trees any potential tree hazard that the public seize they should let us know when we have storms were vulnerable to branches and trees falling so call 311 number will allow us to get and work on that emergency preparation for the storm it is fall and with the fall we all see the leaves with a little bit of wind the wind leaves can clog our cap baselines so if you see any catch by an that has a number of leaves again call the 311 number the 311 comes through the system to us well have crews that will be out there to clean up the catch baselines with the rain like el nino can flowed pretty fast and if that catch by an is not clean quickly water raise and jumps the curbs and gets into homes the public can help us you know when you see a situation like that it is an easy job get a rack or broom and put the leaves in a bag so were ready for the storms and well be working around the clock but possess importantly the public eyes on the streets so when you see things you believe that creates a situation please call 311 and well be out there thank you. Thank you, mohammed next Michael Deputy general manager of the Public Utilities commission. Michael. Good morning so were youre wart and Power Providers in San Francisco and the bay area many of the remarks are my remarks on that and i think to emphasize with the mayor said we need to be prepared we are we have been working on this for quite sometime and corridor with the public works and actually working with the City Attorneys Office if we do get into a situation where there is damage in the city one of the things that mohammed said i want to emphasize youll help yourselves by clearing storm drains 25 storm drains in San Francisco we can get to 9 thousand plus so many well not be able to get to if you get out there and make sure that the water goes away from buildings and protects the property the other thing in a low lying area youre there elevate our belongings and put them up high to not get disadvantaged i dont know wants to lose their prized possessions and fled insurance you can take out flowed insurance and lastly we have a Grant Program at the Public Utilities commission for eligible pertaining to help to protect their property from flooding and finally if flooding 311 were monitoring that our crews without with the department of public works and thats the best way to respond to our concerns thank you. Thank you very much, michael this time id like to acknowledge our partner here with us today ashley from the meals an wheels, bruce makinna with the corporation thank you. Major sheryl with Salvation Army and marty with project open hand thank you. And charles from st. Anthonys and Berry Anderson from pg e that concludes our press conference well stick around and answer questions if i want to do individual interviews thank you all for coming thank interviews thank you all for coming thank ui want to do indi interviews thank you all for coming thank want to do indivi interviews thank you all for coming thank. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Id like to call roll. Please do. Commission president loftus is excused. Commission Vice President is excused. Commissioner marshall is excused. Commissioner dejesus, present. Commissioner mazzucco, present. Commissioner mazzucco, you have a quorum. Also wuls is inaudible representing the department and gregory p. Surr ladies and gentlemen, lc